Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association, in Montreal, Canada September 7 -9, 2018

The theme for EHA 2018 is “‘From Plague, Famine, and War, Save us, O Lord’ Shocks and Disasters in Economic History”. The age-old prayer refers to disasters that have blighted lives throughout history. The theme is an invitation for papers on the broader economic-historical aspects of such crises—environmental, climatic, humanitarian, economic, and other. Plagues and famines kill few nowadays, and deaths from state-based conflicts are also in decline. But they still matter, not least because may well threaten again as global warming intensifies. The theme of the 2018 meetings embraces topics such as the economic causes and consequences of wars and of other disasters; comparative and interdisciplinary analyses of famines and plagues from classical antiquity to modern times; analyses of the institutions that attempted to counter them; of their proximate and remoter causes (e.g. climate change); of their changing incidence over time; of the welfare gains from their eradication; and of their short- and long-run economic, demographic, and political consequences. Proposals on macroeconomic and financial crises and, indeed, on any other topic, are also welcome.